The present invention relates to vehicle body assembly machines for use in vehicle body assembly lines of automobiles and, more particularly, a general-purpose vehicle body assembly machine and a method thereof specifically suited for positioning and supporting a plurality of panels which form a vehicle body.
In the related art, it has heretofore been a usual practice to utilize a general-purposes vehicle body assembly machine including locating units for positioning a work a preset position in accordance with a vehicle body assembling operation as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent No. 2745841.
With such a structure, a transfer truck is mounted with a plurality of locators each of which has an operating freedom in orthogonal three axes in X-, Y- and Z-directions. As shown in FIG. 1, each of the locators includes locating unit 101, which has a locating pin 102 and a clamp arm 103, with the plural locating units being used for positioning and clamping a given panel at the preset position for a subsequent transfer to a next work stage.
As shown in FIG. 1, further, the locating pin 102 of each locating unit 101 is associated with a seating detection means 105, such as a proximity switch, which is mounted in an outside area adjacent to the locating pin 102 via a bracket 106 for detecting whether the locating pin 102 is precisely inserted through a locating bore 104 of the panel W11 and whether the panel W11 is seated on the locating pin 102. Thus, the seating detection means 105 functions to detect the presence of seating or unseating state of the panel W11.
Also, the panel W11 is formed with an embossed portion 108, which is seated on a work seating surface 107 of the locating pin 102, in a concentric relationship with the locating bore 104. With such a configuration, if the embossed portion 108 is correctly seated on the work seating surface 107, the panel is clamped with the clamp arm 103 internally located in the locating pin 102.